moments, and perhaps even during religious services, but find themselves bothered by the problems of belonging to a church, synagogue, or mosque. They may pray from time to time, particularly when in dire need, and they may go to services on key holidays.
But for this group, finding God is a mystery, a worry, or a problem.
The main benefit of this path is that it often helps people to fine-tune their approach to their childhood faith. Unlike those who consider themselves clearly religious or clearly nonreligious, these people have not yet made up their minds, and so they are constantly refining their ideas about a religious commitment.
But confusion can lapse into laziness. Avoiding worship services because of a particular criticism can lead to leaving organized religion entirely because it’s too much work, or because it takes too much energy to belong to a group that demands, say, charity and forgiveness.
Much of my adult life, before entering the Jesuits, was spent on this path. As a boy, I was raised in a loving family with a lukewarm Catholic background. My family went to church regularly, but we didn’t engage in those practices that mark very religious Catholics— saying grace at meals, speaking regularly about God, praying before going to bed, and attending Catholic schools. And in college I grew increasingly confused about God.
After Jacque’s mysterious answer moved me to give God another chance, I returned to church, but in a desultory way. I wasn’t sure exactly what, or who, I believed in. So for several years God the Problem Solver was replaced by a more amorphous spiritual concept: God the Life Force, God the Other, God the Far-Away One. While these are valid images of God, I had no idea that God could be anything but those abstract ideas. And I figured that things would stay that way until I died.
Then, at age twenty-six, I came home one night after work and turned on the television set. After graduation, I had taken a job with General Electric but was beginning to grow dissatisfied with the work. After six years of working late at night and on the weekends, I had also started to develop stress-related stomach problems and was wondering how much more I could take.
On television that night was a documentary about Thomas Merton, a man who had turned his back on a dissolute life to enter a Trappist monastery in the early 1940s. Something about the expression on his face spoke to me: his countenance radiated a peace that to me seemed unknown, or at least forgotten. The show was so interesting that the next day I purchased and began reading Merton’s autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain .
Gradually, I discovered within myself a desire to do something similar to what Thomas Merton had done; maybe not join a monastery (since I’m too talkative) but somehow lead a more contemplative, more religious, life. That experience helped me to step off the path of confusion and onto the path of belief, which led to the Jesuits.
T HOSE ARE THE SIX paths on which many seem to travel. What does St. Ignatius have to say to people on each of those paths about finding God? The answer is: plenty.
The way of Ignatius is an invitation to those who have always believed in God, who believe in God but not in religion, who have rejected God, who are coming back to God, who are exploring, and who are confused. Ignatius’s approach meets you on your path and leads you closer to God.
S PIRITUAL BUT N OT R ELIGIOUS
Before we tackle the question of how to find God, a digression on two important ideas: religion and spirituality. Everybody seems to be spiritual these days—from your college roommate to the person in the office cubicle next to yours to the subject of every other celebrity interview. But if “spiritual” is fashionable, “religious” is unfashionable. This is usually expressed as follows: “I’m spiritual but not religious.” It’s even referred to by the acronym SBNR.
There are so many people who
But for this group, finding God is a mystery, a worry, or a problem.
The main benefit of this path is that it often helps people to fine-tune their approach to their childhood faith. Unlike those who consider themselves clearly religious or clearly nonreligious, these people have not yet made up their minds, and so they are constantly refining their ideas about a religious commitment.
But confusion can lapse into laziness. Avoiding worship services because of a particular criticism can lead to leaving organized religion entirely because it’s too much work, or because it takes too much energy to belong to a group that demands, say, charity and forgiveness.
Much of my adult life, before entering the Jesuits, was spent on this path. As a boy, I was raised in a loving family with a lukewarm Catholic background. My family went to church regularly, but we didn’t engage in those practices that mark very religious Catholics— saying grace at meals, speaking regularly about God, praying before going to bed, and attending Catholic schools. And in college I grew increasingly confused about God.
After Jacque’s mysterious answer moved me to give God another chance, I returned to church, but in a desultory way. I wasn’t sure exactly what, or who, I believed in. So for several years God the Problem Solver was replaced by a more amorphous spiritual concept: God the Life Force, God the Other, God the Far-Away One. While these are valid images of God, I had no idea that God could be anything but those abstract ideas. And I figured that things would stay that way until I died.
Then, at age twenty-six, I came home one night after work and turned on the television set. After graduation, I had taken a job with General Electric but was beginning to grow dissatisfied with the work. After six years of working late at night and on the weekends, I had also started to develop stress-related stomach problems and was wondering how much more I could take.
On television that night was a documentary about Thomas Merton, a man who had turned his back on a dissolute life to enter a Trappist monastery in the early 1940s. Something about the expression on his face spoke to me: his countenance radiated a peace that to me seemed unknown, or at least forgotten. The show was so interesting that the next day I purchased and began reading Merton’s autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain .
Gradually, I discovered within myself a desire to do something similar to what Thomas Merton had done; maybe not join a monastery (since I’m too talkative) but somehow lead a more contemplative, more religious, life. That experience helped me to step off the path of confusion and onto the path of belief, which led to the Jesuits.
T HOSE ARE THE SIX paths on which many seem to travel. What does St. Ignatius have to say to people on each of those paths about finding God? The answer is: plenty.
The way of Ignatius is an invitation to those who have always believed in God, who believe in God but not in religion, who have rejected God, who are coming back to God, who are exploring, and who are confused. Ignatius’s approach meets you on your path and leads you closer to God.
S PIRITUAL BUT N OT R ELIGIOUS
Before we tackle the question of how to find God, a digression on two important ideas: religion and spirituality. Everybody seems to be spiritual these days—from your college roommate to the person in the office cubicle next to yours to the subject of every other celebrity interview. But if “spiritual” is fashionable, “religious” is unfashionable. This is usually expressed as follows: “I’m spiritual but not religious.” It’s even referred to by the acronym SBNR.
There are so many people who
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